*****Spoiler Alert******I will say that the sorta algebraic, high school math solution we found for the puzzle -- which got us to a totally valid, correct answer -- was a lot harder than the elementary school level solution that the designers intended for us to use.

So, in other words, the team named "Don't Make This Weird" did, in fact, make it weird?

Oh, and I'm LOVING the recaps. My biggest disappointment each year is that I don't get to see the rest of the adventure when we crash and burn in the first round. Luckily for me, I really enjoy crashing and burning. And I'm good at it. Spectacular, even.

Our third round started with a descent down a very long, square staircase with an open shaft in the middle. The sort of staircase that just screams "DEFENESTRATION". There were unsafe, crumbling areas in the stairs that our druid's passive perception spotted -- by this point, I'm pretty sure that any team that didn't have the druid's high passive perception has been weeded out, anyway, but it was key to surviving the descent.

A bit further down the stairs we spotted a scrying sensor a bit below our position. We stopped and used a Halluincatory Item ritual to create a model of the staircase around the sensor -- something that would box up the sensor, and make the sensor think it was still looking at the stairwell. That seemed to work well enough for us to get by the sensor without alerting anything below us.

A little further down we encountered a couple of odd, demonic firefly swarms. These guys were not too bad to fight, but they had a slide 1 attack that could easily have dumped an unwary party member off the edge of the staircase down to the bottom of the shaft. We quickly learned to keep ourselves to the outside wall.

As that fight got underway, we heard a door below open, and some running feet coming up the stairs. It took several rounds for those running feet to materialize -- two undead opponents, one was one of the mummies that were starting to feel like roaches(every one you see means there are a thousand behind the walls) and some melee-type deathknight dude. So, we did the sensible thing -- we dropped the death knight down the shaft and nuked the mummy. By the time the deathknight dude climbed the stairs for the second time, the mummy was dead and we were very ready for him.

This combat was the first of several in which the fighter got really, really frustrated and bored. Our ranged attacks, sweet controlled magic and use of the terrain allowed us to take out a lot of our opponents with a minimum of melee contact. In a few cases, later on, the ranges were so long the Bard (my guy) actually had to take the shrink wrap off his bow because none of his powers had long enough range to contribute.

Anyway, we went down to the bottom of the stairs, found the dent the death knight dude left in the floor when we dropped him, and a door. Passed through that door into a 1-space wide passage that lead around to a large, open cavern, with a muddy hot spring in the middle, a big contraption like a sort of propeller thing standing up in the middle, with platforms that were moving slowly around in a circle, providing a sort of ferry across the muddy muck.

Once again with the high passive perception we spotted a magical creature -- i'll be damned if I remember the guy's name, it was important to the story and everything. He wasn't a sphinx, but that's the way I was thinking of him. He was clutching a stalagtite in the ceiling with a crazy look in his eye, clearly his mind was bent. We tried talking to him, but got nowhere. So we busted out ritual #2, remove affliction. The ritual removed the madness and grief that was making him nuts, and he spoke to us. We got some good information out of him, knew what to expect as we headed for the final room, then got him to help us by ferrying us across the mud so we could avoid having to trust the small platforms of the propeller thing.

Of course, it wasn't going to be that easy. A pair of fire archon things jumped up out of the mud as soon as we go started. Our druid hammered them with stacked frost powers and his staff of winter effect -- once they were immobilized, they dropped out of the air back into the mud -- and we managed to keep them from getting close enough to attack very often while we took them apart. Again, bored fighter, bored healer. But that's the way we like it.

An interesting note . . . at this point in the session, the Druid noticed that most of us were sitting on action points. The gut reaction at that point was to spend them ASAP, even if it seemed wasteful, because the scoring system we had seen from last year's tournament deducted points for unspent action points. BUT we held off -- especially those of us who would be taking part in the ritual to read the scroll in the final room. Those action points came in handy.

Oh, yeah, and there was one last mummy on the far side of the big mud pit chamber. I think we knocked him around pretty quickly, too.

Anyway, after that we moved through some more tunnels to the final room. We raced in, paid healing surges to enter the center of the room where we would need to read the ritual stanzas backwards, and started reading. With action points, we managed to get all but one stanza read before the room's defenders started to react. Within another round we had the ritual completely reversed, and we were mangling the tentacles and minions that were being summoned up.

We beat the tentacles and thought we had the room handled, when time ran out. Afterwards, Adrian told us that there was another fight after that one. I know that we got just barely further along than other groups did, so no one has seen that next fight yet. So, if it's a year from now and you're reading this to get the jump on this adventure when your home DM runs it, you're on your own for this last fight.

And, since you're clearly a cheater, I hope your DM kills you. No more reading spoilers.

Overall . . . we had a blast, and Adrian is a rock star DM. He brings stuff to life incredibly well -- especially managing to do it in a way that didn't slow the game down. I think I'd wait in line to play anything he was dming, even if it were Barbie Playhouse D20.

We were feeling pretty good when we walked out of that session. I'm totally shocked that all three teams were so close together in time -- I'm not surprised that the three of us managed to handle the encounters leading up to the end well -- after all, we wouldn't be in the final round if hazards like crumbling stairs and a deep deep shaft would have caught us off guard. But the idea that we were literally all within minutes of each other after four hours of play blows my mind. Like, if I had taken one more potty break we might have ended up in 3rd place.

Gratz to everyone involved, all the contestants and DMs and Goodman Games. It was awesome.

Overall . . . we had a blast, and Adrian is a rock star DM. He brings stuff to life incredibly well -- especially managing to do it in a way that didn't slow the game down. I think I'd wait in line to play anything he was dming, even if it were Barbie Playhouse D20.

You're in luck - rumor has it that Goodman Games plans to support that line soon, and Adrian has been hand-picked to spearhead it...

A little further down we encountered a couple of odd, demonic firefly swarms. These guys were not too bad to fight, but they had a slide 1 attack that could easily have dumped an unwary party member off the edge of the staircase down to the bottom of the shaft.

Yes..."easily" is the operative word here. I was wondering if any of the 3rd round groups would have a PC fall down the stairwell...

Yes..."easily" is the operative word here. I was wondering if any of the 3rd round groups would have a PC fall down the stairwell...

That was one of the things our group talked about a lot while we waited for the results. There were key points in the adventure where smart play avoided time sinks and other problems. This is a perfect example. I think, in a first or even second round adventure, it would be easy to expect that there would be parties that would make the mistake of being in position to be pulled over.

But in the third round . . . . well, I just find it hard to believe that we'd be there in the final round if we were prone to that sort of mistake. And, had we made it, we would deserve the big dent in our chances.

Yes..."easily" is the operative word here. I was wondering if any of the 3rd round groups would have a PC fall down the stairwell...

That was one of the things our group talked about a lot while we waited for the results. There were key points in the adventure where smart play avoided time sinks and other problems. This is a perfect example. I think, in a first or even second round adventure, it would be easy to expect that there would be parties that would make the mistake of being in position to be pulled over.

But in the third round . . . . well, I just find it hard to believe that we'd be there in the final round if we were prone to that sort of mistake.

Ah, didn't mean it that way at all. Hell, there was a moment when I realized that I was on the edge (playing the bard) and if the mummy, flying around in bug swarm form, wanted to come over and try to teeter me off the edge, he could have. I got through that round without drawing attention to myself and pressed my buttcheeks into the stone wall for the rest of the encounter. Just like showering in prison . . . .

So, I have no idea if anyone on the other teams did do the big drop during that encounter. If they did, well, everyone goofs. But I'd be surprised if that were the case. And, you know, sh*t happens.

So, read some emphasis on the "prone to" those sorts of mistakes. If there's a cliff, are you the guys who are sure to walk up to the edge and fight with your backs to it? In that case, you're going to enjoy a nice brunch sunday morning instead of playing in the finals. If you end up there because you got pushed there, or because the DM pulled something tricksy, and if that sort of mistake is unusual for you, then you can probably survive it the few times it happens, the way it did for me.

As one of the contributing authors to "Scroll of Ruin", it warms my cold, evil black heart to read threads like these. We write these adventures to challenge you guys and gals ... and it's great to see how you all rise to that challenge!Keep the war stories coming!

As one-third of the unholy trio responsible (plus Adrian's in-depth development) I can only echo this sentiment! Do keep those stories coming!Of course, if I mention that it was my idea to include the manticore and the gorgon, I might get stoned to death, so I won't...

_________________DCC #26 The Scaly GodDCC #60 Thrones of PunjarMonstercology: OrcsAge of Cthulhu 2: Madness in London TownCo-author Age of Cthulhu 5: The Long Reach of EvilCo-author 2006, 2007, 2008 Tourney DCCs

Hats off to the writers. It was great to have an interesting background and character stories that actually came into play during the tournament.

********SPOILERS************

I played Ta'ud Az'ra and challenged every mummy. Something like "The Mother of the Stars brings Annihalation to Aubaridan Ahktar and his Servant Yash'ar Aref!" I did not think it would do anything, but it or something like it actually seamed to stun one mummy for a round. COOL!

The players of the three female characters agued about who would get the beautiful necklaces (you know the ones, no we did not actually put them on), and were not happy until they all had one.

The player of Ravak suffered endless ribbing along the lines of "maybe you want to go back to jail then?" We all congratulated her when we finally fought a monster with a shield (she has a really bad feat theat needs that). Of course, we killed the thing before it could close.

And of course there was the Simurge...

It was great, keep it up for next year!

I took some pictures, I will see if I can post them. There are just a few, I wish I had taken many more.

****! Let's get out of here. As John described above, we decided to run for it. We had already unlocked the secret door and thought the best way out of the trap would be to just run through. That got a lot harder when the Bulette showed up. I am not sure if running for it was the best move or not. We would have been a lot better off fighting in the chock point of the doors. But we did make it and locked the secret door behind us and pitoned it as well. We knew that would not stop the Bulette, but it made us feel better. There were some tense seconds while we held our breath and listened for something coming after us, but nothing ever did.

First Round:We fought the Gorgon and Manticore, then headed down. Set the astrolabe thing to the Heavenly Archway also, and continued on. Beat the wraiths and tar elemental, but had about 30 minutes left. We used Wizard's Sight on the next room to see that there was a huge fight waiting for us, and used Magic Mouth to plant a message on the other side, combined with an attempted Diplomacy check of 39 to avoid the fight. No dice. So we went back, searched the tar elemental room and found a panel with money and a ring in it. Then went back up, and as our last action, switched the Astrolabe to the Devouring Star, which then said something in a booming voice, ending our round.

Second Round:We destroyed the second round, and rightly so - the first fight took a long time, and that's what saved us. I used Divine Power on round 1 or 2, and had regeneration for a long time. Combined with quick takedown of foes, and Cure Light / Cure Serious, we got through this fight with only having to spend a surge or three. Found a room with a lever, flipped it, found a piece of paper about the bells, went through the illusory wall, found the bell, but started exploring the rest of the room. Triggered the fight, took down a bunch of guys and utterly demolished the Bulette, and that was it. But only 3 surges spent this round, total. That caused some stares in the lobby or something.

Third Round:Went down the stairs, and fought the swarms. The warlock did indeed fall off the stairs, and fell nearly 80 feet, and eventually our fighter fell off too (but he kind of planned it that way.) We dropped the main guy down the shaft too, and the fighter man-handled him one on one with his massive necrotic resistance. The wizard has enough perception to notice the cracked floors here too, so we didn't need the druid. Made it to the next room, where a bridge was rotating. Crossed the bridge, triggered the encounter, and this is where we messed up - spent way too many surges. All of us used action points to get them back again afterwards. We also diplomacy'd the Simurgh into helping us. Went down, fought the Effendi guy, and used all our action points to get the scroll completed by round two. Alas, we did not down a tentacle though.

I guess this is where I put my foot in my mouth. Or, I would, if I were not too fat and middle aged to get my foot that close to my mouth.

Thanks for your recap -- you handled clearly handled some of the challenges -- like the bell room fight -- far better than we did -- after all, we ran like little girls, waving our hands over our heads and peeing down our legs. At least, that's what the bard was doing.

In the first round, you did more with the oculus thing than we did, but we wiped out the last room.

And, really, I guess I should really eat my own words about the drop down the shaft of the stairwell -- you had two characters make the drop and were only a whisker behind us in the last round, so it wasn't as big a deal as I was making it out to be, I guess.

Thanks for the recap -- anyone else got a slightly different tale of woe to tell?

I finally read all the posts here. Bifster, that "Muppet Heroes LARP" is going to stick in my head for a while.

As the designer of the 3rd round intro with the stairwell, the swarms, and the mummies, it does my evil heart good to hear that a couple of PCs plummeted. And I'm more delighted to hear that you guys had fun.

It's hard to pick an encounter that was the "most" memorable because they all were pretty memorable. I felt like we managed most of the fights pretty well (so well that I spent a significant amount of time in round 3 readied for someone to get close enough for me to hit), but that doesn't mean that any of them felt easy. Even when we had a fight in hand, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

That first fight with the gorgon and the manticore was pretty memorable. It was also nice for me because the fighter's ability to stop movement with a successful opportunity attack confounded the manticore and really made a noticeable difference in our ability to beat the crud out of that guy (also, I was actually rolling numbers over 5 on my attack rolls, so that was nice too).

Likewise, I felt really useful in the 2nd fight of the first round in that I was able to lock down the tar monster (and take a few hits from the ghosts) while the rest of the group busted the telescopes from distance (resist 10 fire/necrotic was amazingly useful in that fight).

In the end, though, I think for me the most memorable "fight" was in the 3rd round in the room of boiling mud. Admittedly, I didn't do much to help win that fight; I had to pull out the old longbow and take a few mostly ineffective potshots. But when we were able to successfully Remove Affliction from the sphinx-like fellow (whose name escapes me at the moment) and avoid having an extra foe who could have made fighting in that room a real nightmare, I was pretty darned pleased (side note: we tried diplomacy first and rolled well, but apparently didn't use quite the right combination of words/names...I'm guessing we maybe forgot to name the one student who survived? anyone able to clue me in on what worked?).

When the fire archons and the robed cultist popped up, our druid took an absolutely inspired turn. He blasted the cultist with an encounter, made him cold vulnerable, spent an action point, dropped another big cold attack on him, slid him around, then popped off his staff of winter to immobilize both archons...who promptly fell out of the sky and vanished beneath the mud (they came back eventually, of course, but they were totally out of the fight for a round (and one for 2 rounds due to a failed save). I might be remembering it a little wrong, but I think he had bloodied or nearly bloodied the cultist in that round. It was really impressive.

The last encounter with the ritual to end the world was a close second. I remember Adrian saying that the DCs were too low, and while I understand and agree with the sentiment, our party was totally built for that encounter. We took all the arcana-trained characters AND all of them saved an action point specifically for the ritual. So we had 7 checks (the first success started the encounter) before the first round was over, and all of those checks were with arcana heavy-hitters. I imagine even with the "low" DCs it would take most other teams (I'm talking home groups now) a bit longer to get through that ritual. And with the tentacles grabbing the scroll away...ugh.

I said it before, but all three rounds were challenging and fun. Kudos to the designers and authors (and playtesters and editors and really just everyone involved). Our team also participated in the Ultimate Delve (and were the first team at the Con to beat it...yes, I'm patting my own back right now, what of it?) and while there is certainly a lot of fun to be had with running through a bunch of meat-grinder combats, what impressed me so much about this tournament is that the meat-grinder combats were connected by a great story and that interaction with the environment mattered. Also, I really enjoyed our DMs. Each had a very different style (although they all seemed to want to kill us) and while I hate to single any one of them out (because I thought all 3 were great), I do have to say that Adrian really rocked it (full disclosure: we were in a room all by ourselves for the 3rd round, so the fact that I could actually hear him didn't hurt...I think the din from surrounding tables in the first and second round had us a little rattled once or twice--but at least it wasn't from muppet LARPers).

Both my round 1 teams played well. I am suprised neither advanced. But neither did anything that was super amazing. I will say that the Browncoats did very well for only having a 4 man team, and the matching brown shirts were very cool (next year try to have the whole team in uniform).

Round 2 was quite different (round 2 team, I'm so sorry I forgot your name).They spent an inordinate amount of time fighting the first fight. Eventually the fight spilled out over several rooms as they were looking for "Mummy Generators" (just like in Gauntlet). As they searched about they quickly found the illusionary wall and made their way into the bell room.

After getting the description the Paladin decides to go investigate a Bell. He randomly picks the special Bell, but because he does not want to accidently ring it, he reaches under to grab the noexistant clapper. Sensing a clue they almost accidently open the secret door. A fight breaks out and the team very quickly battles across the room to get in the secret passage. They kill a few statues, and mostly ingnore the Bulette. They sucked up a lot of oppurtunity attacks. They shut the door (with an AP) and wave goodbye to the Land Shark.

They get to the last room, and have about 8 minutes. After flavor text and descriptions about 4 minutes. Through some sort of idiot savantism they place the stones and get one right and one wrong, setting off the room. They roll initiative, win, wrestle out the wrong stone, put in the correct stone (I still don't know how they knew which one) and open the doors. They finish the round with 18 seconds on the clock. Yee Haw.

Round three has already been well described. My team did quite well, but my favorite part of the round was the singing. At every game I play I try to get "sing along" going; it's just what I like (so sue me). I thought with all the thorn whipping druids running about I could at least a few bars of 'Whip-it' sang. But noooooo, nobody would sing. Then out of nowhere in round three, in the mud room, they encounter the rotating platform. As the platform turns and moves a the PC's across, one of them (the bard) sings "To everything, Turn, Turn, Turn.... ". It was awesome.

So heres to you Mr. Adventuring, Scroll of Ruin Reversing, Singing Bard Guy. You are awesome, and made my day.

First off, I'd like to thank all the teams who played in the tourney. We had an amazing turnout this year: 38 teams and about 178 individual players.If you do the math (and I mean "you," not me, 'cause I'll get it wrong) then all told there were something like 1,008 people/hours played for Scroll of Ruin (although many of those people/hours were played concurrently, if you follow me).Extra thanks for those of you posting your war stories on this board. As the tournament organizer it warms my dead, cold heart to hear how you handled X or ran from Y or totally owned Z.

It's interesting to me because my feelings about the encounters and which ones were "cool" are almost entirely based on whether I got to do anything cool in that encounter. And, to a lesser extent, if other folks in the party got to do something cool. But it's a sort of alchemical combination of good encounter design that makes a good canvas for the players to come up with something clever or unusual.

So, I was playing the bard. Did I get to do much that was cool in many of the encounters? Well . . . . like I said, bard.

In the first round, I dominated the tar monster and used it to attack the first telescope we tried attacking. It struck me as a clever way to check those things for traps and test the effect of attacking them, and to use a power which I found very little use for in many other circumstances. I liked the final battle in that round, too, from the player's point of view, because as a team we managed to handle that seriously intimidating encounter with great tactics and teamwork. That was one of those moments when we were really clicking.

In the second round . . . Hey, I already said I used a way too complicated way to solve the gem puzzle in the final encounter. All those years of high school math league paid off! I was inordinately proud of that. The other encounters that level were not big moments for me -- the opening fight was frustrating, and the bell room we had to evade.

The third round . . . I got a good buzz off the way we handled the encounters on the stairs -- and that felt good, because it was clear both that it was a tough encounter and also that we had it's number. Chzbro mentioned the second encounter because of the way the druid pwned the archons and the mummy cultist on the far side. That was pretty awesome again. And I felt like we handled the last encounter pretty well, but the first encounter there, for me, was the biggest buzz.

But . . . I think it's a very different thing to look at the encounters without thinking about how we played through them -- which encounters were really good design just on their own?

First round: I think the first encounter, with the way the players have the opportunity, if they think fast, to control the way the "real" monsters arrive -- I think that's cool and clever. Close second, I think the room with the wraiths & tar monster & telescopes was a cool room, but it's interesting to look at the way the room had very different terrain depending upon whether the party had made certain moves in the oculus above. One of the settings on the big dial sets up a staircase that goes down from the platform to the bottom of the telescope room, I think -- and because we didnt' do that, we had the advantage of an elevated platform from which to pummel the enemies. Without that, it's a very different encounter. I find that interesting design.

Second round . . . I wish I'd seen more of the bell room -- that really looks like it's a cool room, with a lot going on. I almost wish there had been more of the terracotta warrior monk action and no bulette, but I really can't say much about the encounter except it sure looked like a mess of trouble from where I was (fetal position, peeing myself, behind the fighter, as I recall). And, the third room, with the puzzle that actually has the simple solution . . . I have mixed feelings about puzzles like this. They seem to be a meta-game distraction from the story at the table. Don't get me wrong, it was a cool puzzle (mostly because I solved it), but settling down to solve the puzzle takes me out of the story, out of the game. At the same time, the puzzles are a trope that is a big part of these sorts of adventures, so . . . I dunno. Like I said, very mixed feelings.

Third round I thought was A-game all the way. The staircase is a great setting -- think about it, a place where there are a variety of hazards . . . and the spiral staircase really feels three dimensional as you work your way down . . . and there's very little way to get far away from the threat of the long drop down the stairs . . . I think that encounter was terrific. The other two were very good, but the stairs were my favorite for pure design reasons, I think.

So, both ways I look at it, I think the stairs are my favorite. Think my players will notice if I set all of my future encounters on big spiral staircases?

So heres to you Mr. Adventuring, Scroll of Ruin Reversing, Singing Bard Guy. You are awesome, and made my day.

Right back at ya! You were a superb DM, and I enjoyed the fact that you put up with me.

This whole experience was just awesome for me and my friends. Had no expectations to make it as far as we did, especially considering how challenging those combats were! I think having both leaders really gave us a leg up, especially since both had a good mix of non-HS healing.

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